LiskHQ Closes the Community Fund and Reimburses the Donations

Launched in 2016, the Community Fund was lately seen as a problem for LiskHQ, especially from the legal and strategic points of view.
LiskHQ decided to close it, returning all donations to the original senders. The operations will start on Wednesday, September 18th.

The Community Fund was introduced to act as a decentralized funding vehicle for new blockchain applications, third party tools and core contributions from our community.
During these 3 years, the fund received 260 donations, raising in total 198.985 LSK (approximately $190.000). Max and Oliver donated 50.000 LSK each, but it’s important to notice that donations came also from past delegates (like malreynolds [4.500 LSK]; bitbanksy [10.000+ LSK]; isabella [6.000 LSK]) and still active delegates (joel [10.000 LSK]; slasheks [4.000 LSK]; corsaro [2300+ LSK]).

After having considered all options, we have decided to not move forward with #Lisk’s community fund. Starting on Wednesday (September 18th), we will begin the process of returning all donations to the original senders. Read about what’s next: https://t.co/DpjHny8cB4

Community Fund address: 15841793714384967784L
The Community Fund should have been controlled by 16 curators (a mix between team members, community members and public individuals) in a multi-signature account, but as stated by Max Kordek “There were no curators, as the legal requirements for such a fund could never be cleared out“.
The Lisk Foundation should have been the temporary escrow agent for the Community Fund because the Fund should have been turned into a Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO). This passage would have increased the legal requirements, consequently increasing the financial resources needed to set it up. In addition, the first development roadmap took into account the Decentralised Voting Mechanism, so there should have been a system to allow voters/donors to choose which project would have received the money and how much. With the new roadmap, this implementation is no longer included.

If people instead donate to the Foundation, the scenario would be different, but at that time the legal requirements were considered from a different prospective. Now it’s not possible to send the Community Fund into the Foundation, as LiskHQ cannot know if everyone would agree with that decision. After having considered all options, it seems that the shutdown is the best solution.

As many donors used their public delegate account, LiskHQ can easily contact them to be sure that their Lisk address is still valid; anonymous donors can send a private message to the Community Manager Mat (@Mat#5761) on Lisk Discord.
If you wish to donate your LSK to the Lisk Foundation, you can inform LiskHQ when they will contact you for the reimbursement procedure.